2026 Staff Pick’em Week 9 – Anchor Of Gold

We mishandled last week like Jeff Lebby handled Kamario Taylor’s injury situation.
The horror. The horror. We decided to follow up a 20-28 in Week 7 by going 15-27 in Week 8. Goodness gracious. We are falling apart. Granted, the entire college football world seems to be unraveling at the seams on the field and off. The on-field chaos is at least fun for viewers. It is horrible for our picks. Andrew drug himself up by his bootstraps with the best week of anyone at 5-2. You ruffians were the only other ones above .500 at 4-3. Cole and Tom were close at 3-4. I was a miserable 2-5, but even that that was bottomed by the alumni Christian and Import both going 1-6. Ugh. The staff season total is now down to 271-287.
The only game with a majority of the staff being right was LSU beating Auburn by well more than 6.5. We managed to split Vanderbilt at Kentucky and Tennessee at South Carolina. Including the crowd vote, a majority did take Kentucky which is pretty painful. Winning on our own demise. Every staffer missed out on Oklahoma at Mississippi State while the herd got it right, but that can easily be explained by our picks being in before injury reports were out on how at-risk Kamario Taylor was.
With Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Tennessee, Alabama, and LSU all on bye weeks, there are 5 SEC-SEC games and a Top 25 matchup in the Big XII on tap. The staff is not all on any one team. There are 2 games with 5 to 1 slants and 3 more with a majority. The only even split is Auburn at Ole Miss.
Feel free to use this as a Friday night open thread.
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My record last week was not a challenge…
I have brought dishonor on myself, my family, and my cow.
Everyone was close even if 4 of us had a losing record in Week 5.
Nobody was a loser!
Andrew and I owe the rest of the staff an apology.
Boys, we picked like Stephen Rivers reads a wristband.
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